UDOT traffic engineers and emergency medical technicians are all about staying safe, but members of the professions look at safety issues from different perspectives. UDOT Traffic Engineer Brad Lucas thought the Zero Fatalities Safety Summit was helpful because of the idea-mixing encouraged at the event. “We all promote safety.” For example, “I got the perspective of emergency personnel and how they deal with traffic accidents,” he explains. Lucas will take that knowledge with him as he performs his job at UDOT.

The partnering that takes place among a variety of safety-promoting agencies is not new – UDOT has been working with community partners for more than six years. Zero Fatalities is a combined effort of law enforcement, safety educators, engineers, health educators and emergency responders.

The outcome of the partnership has resulted in several ambitious and successful programs, all of which seek to achieve the goal to achieve Zero Fatalities by taking aim at the five top behaviors that kill people on Utah roads: drowsy distracted, aggressive and impaired driving and not buckling up.

This year, over four-hundred people attended the summit – more attendees than ever before. Forty-eight workshops were presented over the three day event. Specialty areas included Engineering, Emergency Medical Services, Child Protection Services and Education.

The pre-conference activities focused on high school drivers’ education and raising awareness of safety issues specific to teens. At the end of the conference, attendees honored some of the individuals and organizations that take special effort to help get Utah road users closer to the Zero Fatalities goal. Some of UDOT’s finest received awards for the fine work they do.

Kristy Rigby, Program Manager from UDPS was happy to see a jump in attendance this year. She’s committed to boosting that participation more in future years, and believes that when more people join in, the result will be safer roads and fewer crashes.